Journal Entries
Yes! She is alive!!
Posted Feb 7, 2002
Back from hell, alive and essentially well. Thanks Amy and others..
Took a sabbatical from my life to run my parents lives..ah that role reversal stage is a delight!
But my thanks to those of you who touched base to see if I was breathing and still fed!
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Latest reply: Feb 7, 2002
Deserved it?????
Posted Sep 14, 2001
must say I am more than dismayed with the reactions among some of my fellow planet members. Had this occurred at 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace or the Kremlin, I would have been equally horrified at such barbarism. And I would not have lost forever people very dear to me. I wish for you all to know that not every American wishes to bomb the hell out of the Middle East. Actually on the evening of 9/11, as I finally arrived at my home, saw my husband and held him close-so thankful he had not been at the Pentagon as I had feared- CNN showed the bombings in Afghanistan and both of us shouted almost in the same breath " NO, that’s not how to handle this!"
I hear WWII vets saying, no we are a nation of laws and justice, this is not the way to react. I am by no means a naive woman; of course I fully realize there are people in the world that detest my government. But somehow I assumed that this anger would not necessarily expand beyond the institution to individuals that were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. How could anyone say those people deserved to die? I myself abhor the treatment that the government of Afghanistan has brought upon untold thousands of women. Do I wish to see Afghani people die because of their government’s policies? No.
How do I go about explaining to a nine year old that is full of love for every one and everything that surrounds her that there are people that hate her simply because her mother’s womb happened to be located in America the day she was born? " Yes dear, your ancestors came from those very same shores in about 1630 because they thought they’d give Virginia a go. Why yes, I do suppose they are all cousins after a fact, and no they don’t hate you personally." Having gone to great lengths to make certain that she has learned that people are to be judged by their actions, not their color, or religion or where they come from, how do I explain this? Having raised her to believe that yes there are people in this country that are just plain wrong. "Yes dear, the man in the white sheet with the swastika on his forehead is very wrong, very nasty and frankly nuts. But we ignore such people socially and pray they don’t reproduce. Then fight the right and proper way to ensure that people like him stay out of positions where they have any legal standing. No dear, we don’t arrest him. In this country he has the right to be a bloody loon and Mom would defend to the death his right to be a flaming moron-but that certainly doesn’t mean I have to agree with him."
The rationalization that we "deserved" this, as I have heard quite a lot in the past few days, is frankly abhorrent. Innocent people never deserve to die. Do I always agree with my government’s policies, no. Do you always agree with yours? Do we oft times get involved when we shouldn’t, of course. We’re screwed frankly either way. We involve ourselves in a conflict; we’re strong-arming the world. We choose to stay out of one and suddenly we’re vilified for standing by and letting others commit atrocities. I have however noticed that if there is a monumental disaster outside our borders, we’re usually right there trying to help. Has any other country EVER come to our aid during the many devastating natural disasters of the past 20 years or so? I think not. If so, please educate me as to when and where, I would be most interested.
This caricature of either the ugly ignorant American, or the bloodthirsty barbarian that gets tossed about is indeed grossly unfair. There are plenty of us that pray the world can come together and manage to live in harmony. Plenty of us that pray an ecologically sustainable economy can be created for the entire third world, so they too may be clothed, fed, housed and may never spend another day in fear for the most basic of human necessities. Bandying about national stereotypes is unfair and frankly grossly bigoted behavior. And yes, some of us even do learn a foreign language prior to travelling abroad.
There are untold thousands of kind, decent people in this country that have never harmed a soul by deed or by word whose lives have been devastated utterly. How dare you say they deserved it?
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Latest reply: Sep 14, 2001
She Who Must Be Obeyed
Researcher U184918
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